Southeast Asia: Transition among the Nagas - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 394

mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Daoism, and ancestor
worship, a social practice affiliated with Confucianism.
The island world is largely Islamic with the exception of
Bali, which retained Hinduism after the last Hindu
dynasty in eastern Java had been overthrown in the
seventeenth century .
Christians predominate in the Philippines except on
the island of Mindanao, where Islam prevails, and in
Timor-Leste, where Christianity remains a vestige of
Portuguese colonialism. The Dutch introduced Protes-
tantism in Indonesia in the sixteenth century and the
Jesuit Francis Xavier worked in the Moluccas (Maluku)
from 1546 to 1547. Christian communities remain in
northern Sulawesi and in some islands of Maluku
(Figure 14-10).
Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in some areas
and is sometimes associated with acts of terrorism.
Indonesia, southern Thailand, and Mindanao have been
the most affected by this religious revival. (See Chapters 15
and 16 for more details).

Southeast Asia' s Chinese have a reputation of
being rich and influential but loyal to their own
group. They are said to do business with each other
and hire their kin rather than the local people. Sus-
picion and tension are rife in several countries such
as Indonesia and Malaysia. The least tension is in
Thailand and Singapore.
Chinese family businesses take advantage of
their kin networks and regional connections to stay
afloat in the worst of times. This situation leads to
more jealousy and even hatred among non-Chinese.
Chinese have frequently been the scapegoats for any
sort of trouble. Thousands have been killed, raped,
and tortured and their homes and their businesses
destroyed. The last attack against the Chinese was in
Indonesia during the economic crisis of 1997.

Linguistic Pluralism

Hundreds of distinct languages and dialects are spoken
in Southeast Asia. These can be classified into four main
language families: Malayo-Polynesian (e.g., Malay and
Javanese); Sino-Tibetan (e.g., Thai, Burmese, and
Cantonese); Austro-Asiatic (e.g., Khmer and Annamese,
or Vietnamese); and the various languages of West
Papua. Although the insular region' s languages harken
mainly to the Malayan division of the Malayo-Polynesian
group, the mainland' s languages form a complicated mo-
saic. There are multiple Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic
languages and dialects spoken throughout the region.
For example, there are at least six versions of Chinese.
Hill regions, with their isolated pockets, have developed
a myriad of dialects.
Since the eighteenth century , English has been em-
ployed widely in the fields of education and administration
in many areas such as the Philippines, Singapore,
Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar. In Indochina (Cam-
bodia, Laos, and Vietnam), French was the lingua franca .
Dutch served Indonesia until after World War II, when
English came into favor. The prevalence of English as a
means of general communication is readily apparent on
signage in many places.

Angkor Wat

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire, a
civilization that flourished from about 800 until
about 1370 and included Lower Burma (Myanmar),
the upper Malay Peninsula, central Thailand,
Cambodia, and southern Vietnam. A mixture of
sandstone, brick, and laterite was used to build an
immense complex of temples (the Khmer word
wat means temple), each one a symbolic represen-
tation of Hindu or Buddhist cosmology . The
whole of the Angkor complex covers an area of
more than 15.5 miles (25 km) east to west
and almost 6.2 miles (10 km) north to south
(Figure 14-11).
At one time, the complex supported a million
people sprawled over an area the size of Los
Angeles. But by the fifteenth century a prolonged
drought punctuated by intense monsoons had
destroyed the city' s water-preservation infrastruc-
ture. Furthermore, Angkor was too far inland to
benefit from the maritime trade that was becoming
more important in the region. Then the capital was
moved to Phnom Penh near the coast. Also, the
Siamese were pushing down from the north and
northwest, taking over large sections of the Khmer

Religious Pluralism

The mainland is largely Buddhist with the exception of
the Vietnamese lowlands, where “Chinese religions” and
Roman Catholicism are practiced. Chinese religions are a